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Interview with Rick Skwiot

Posted by
Jo Linsdell
at
7:30 AM

Purchase Links:

Tell us about your latest book.

In my new muckraking urban mystery, Fail, disgraced African-American Police
Lieutenant Carlo Gabriel strives to redeem himself by locating the vanished
husband of the mayor’s comely press secretary. However, instead he unwittingly
and unwillingly unearths a morass of corruption, educational malpractice and
greed that consigns thousands of at-risk black youths to the mean streets of
America’s former murder capital, St. Louis. The novel chronicles Gabriel’s
missing-person search for Jonathan Stone, recently dismissed from his job
teaching remedial grammar at the state university and newly aware of his wife’s
affair with her boss, St. Louis mayor Angelo Cira—a former police officer with
whom Gabriel shares a dark secret: Cira’s murder of an unarmed black suspect.
While hoping only to regain his place in the police headquarters hierarchy
(lost after his beating a prisoner who had killed a cop), Gabriel discovers
information that could get a guy killed.

What formats is the book available in?

Fail is available in paperback and digital
formats—mobi for Kindle, epub and pdf.

What's the best thing about being a writer?

The best
thing about being a writer, and by that I mean creative writer, is to be able
to do your own work, to follow your heart and to create something that never before
existed, a new world where others can visit and take sustenance and enjoyment.
Of course, like most creative writers, I have to supplement my creative writing
with other work—that of a freelance writer and journalist, which has enabled me
to interview hundreds of accomplished people in all walks of life and learn
much from them. Nonetheless, however interesting that bread-and-butter work may
be—and at times it’s even pleasurable—it cannot compare to the great sense of
fulfilment that comes from raw creation. And of course all that comes to
fruition when people read your work and validate that you have made a flesh-and-blood
world worthy of their attention.

Where can people find out more about you and
your writing?

You can
visit my website, www.RickSkwiot.com, where I have links to my books, essays,
book reviews, feature writing and more. You can also check out my GoodReads
page to find my reviews and what I’ve been reading. Also, you can ask me
questions about my books and my work through my GoodReads author page.

Who is you favorite character
in your book and why?

My
point-of-view character, the sardonic cop Carlo Gabriel, appeals to me a lot.
He’s a tough cop yet vulnerable, experienced yet fallible, principled yet
corruptible. That is, he is very human, which I like. And he is a sensualist
with some intellectual curiosity—both of which I can identify with. Further,
like most Americans, he’s a conflicted mix—Mexican-American and
African-American (he calls himself “Halfrican”)—but decidedly American in his
values, tastes, mores and language. Importantly, he has a breezy demeanor and a
cynical sense of humor, always wisecracking and looking for the absurdity in
his situation, but at heart a loner. He’s a guy I would trust (to an extent)
and would like to have a drink with. Further, if there was trouble, I’d want
him on my side.

Why do you think readers are going to enjoy
your book?

With
all due modesty, it’s a page-turning mystery with heart—and a heart-stopping
surprise ending. There’s lots of snappy and funny dialogue leavening a very
serious story of corruption and educational malpractice, which plagues our inner-city
schools. On top of that readers get to know two very compelling main
characters—the rogue (in both senses of the word) cop Carlo Gabriel and the
crusading English teacher Jonathan Stone—as well as two powerful female
characters. Also, I think readers will learn a lot about what’s contributing to
the crisis in our urban schools and on the streets across America while being
thoroughly engaged with the characters and entertained.

How
long did it take you to write your book?

Twenty years, in a fashion. The experience
that was the seed to this book occurred two decades ago when I agreed to teach
a remedial grammar course to incoming freshmen at St. Louis’ inner city
community college, Forest Park. There I was handed a class of 18 African
American high school graduates who could not consistently write—or speak—a
grammatically correct sentence despite their 12 years of “education” in St.
Louis Public Schools. I was stunned. After two other writers—at a ten-year
interval—told me I should write about that experience, I finally began making
notes for what would become Fail.
Over the ensuing two years it went through many drafts. It took another year
before I found the right publisher for it, who over the past six months has had
me reworking the manuscript and adding some new scenes. So, it has been a long
process.

Did you learn anything from writing
your book that was unexpected?

I
think I learned a lot that was unexpected—or at least came to understand the
deeper implications of facts that I had never much scrutinized. One thing is
how pervasive the ongoing corruption is in St. Louis—not that that makes it
unique among Rust Belt cities. But as I began investigating the educational
malpractice there, I saw how intimately related it is to all the inner-city
social ills. The fact that in most big cities half the kids drop out and never
finish high school has significant implications re crime, gang activity, drugs,
dependency and other societal ills. Some 70 percent of state prison inmates
never finished high school. As my book’s epigraph, from Mark Twain, states:
“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail.” Today the schools
are being stopped from doing their jobs. As to who and what is causing that
stoppage and how to fix it—that’s another question that many dedicated
educators and countless parents of school-age kids nationwide are trying to
answer.

Where can a reader purchase
your book?

Readers
everywhere can purchase Fail in
paperback and digital editions through all online retailers—Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, BAM, etc.—or order it from their local bookstore. Readers in St.
Louis will find Fail
at Subterranean Books, Main Street Books, Left Bank Books, STL Books, The
Book House and other area bookstores after October 27, 2014.

How do you research your books?

This
book, Fail, required extensive
research—I delved deeply into the sorry state of urban public schools
nationwide; ongoing St. Louis governmental corruption; the organization,
procedures and equipment of the St. Louis Police Department; the works of Mark
Twain; critical moments in regional American history; area topography; and
more. Luckily, the Internet was able to provide me with a lot of the answers.
In the pre-Web days, I would often put off doing research until later—so as not
to interrupt my writing flow and to make sure that those elements were likely
going to remain in the book before I spent hours at the library or making phone
calls to pin down details and get it right. Now, however, when a detail
surfaces as I am writing, I often stop and Google what I’m looking for, and
usually find it—whether it’s an architectural term, what the weather was like
on a certain date in a certain place, or what the intersection of two streets
in a city I’ve never visited looks like. However, for some inside
information—like specific police operational details—I still need to talk to
someone in the know. Usually that starts with an email to a PR person in the
organization, who is generally happy to hook me up with the right expert.

I enjoyed doing the interview with you, Jo. Thanks for your interest in FAIL, which, as your readers can deduce from the above, is a mystery that deals head on with issues occurring now on the streets of St. Louis and other American cities.